On the 1st of November 2022, Radboud University Medical Centre (Radboudumc) and University of Antwerp joined forces to launch DRIVE-AMS, a new project funded under the EU4Health Programme. This project aims to intensify antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programmes across the European Union by improving prudent antimicrobial use (AMU) and strengthening AMU surveillance, which are both key priorities of the EU One Health Action Plan on AMR.

Every year from 18 until 24 November the World of Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) takes place. It is a global campaign to improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and encourages best practices among the public, One Health stakeholders, and policymakers. They all play a critical role in reducing the further emergence and spread of AMR.

The Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) has published a paper describing the development and implementation of an Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) checklist for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Doctor Anthony Enimil is a Paediatric Infectious Disease Specialist, based in the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana. He is also a member of the Hospital Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee. In this interview, Anthony shares his experience with Global-PPS, the advantages of the study and some future challenges.

Doctors Without Borders will soon deploy its innovative Antibiogo application in several of its laboratories in Mali, Jordan, Yemen and the Central African Republic. This free, open source and offline downloadable Android application will contribute to an increase of information technology to support antimicrobial prescribing in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC).

We interviewed Mari Rose De los Reyes, an infectious disease specialist at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Manila, the Philippines. Mari Rose coordinates the national Global-PPS in the country. This network has grown from 16 initial sites to 80 sites all over the Philippines.

Read our unique testimonial with Kate Clezy and Marije Baan from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) about their involvement in Global-PPS.

In May 2022, the Russian network of hospitals within the Global-PPS project published a new paper in the Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease journal. The goal of the study was to evaluate prescribing patterns of antimicrobials in COVID-19 patients in several Russian multi-field hospitals, and to quantify the prescribing in relation to quality indicators.

At the 32st edition of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), the Global-PPS team from the University of Antwerp and participants from Georgia, Montenegro, and the Philippines present their latest Global-PPS results. This year, ECCMID will take place for the first time as a hybrid event both online and on-site in Lisbon, Portugal on 23 – 26 April 2022.

On December 21, 2021, a network of Canadian hospitals published a paper in CMAJ Open, reporting on their Global-PPS results. This study describes antimicrobial use (AMU) based on detailed patient-level data in Canadian hospitals in 2018 in terms of antimicrobial prevalence, indications and agent selection in adult and paediatric medical, surgical and intensive care wards.

Africa CDC (Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) and CDDEP (Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy) published the first edition of the African antibiotic treatment guidelines for common bacterial infections and syndromes.

The Global-PPS in Iran primarily started in 2015 in the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, concurrently with the first global attempt for data collection about antibiotic consumption conducted by the University of Antwerp, Belgium. From 2017, the Global-PPS was repeated every year with additionaldata collected in 4 new hospitals in Sanandaj.

For a long time, the overuse and inappropriate use of both antibiotics and antimalarial drugs has been observed. This poses a threat to the financial situation of this rural hospital. The problem is known, but behavioral change is challenging.

Optimizing antimicrobial prescribing in hospitals through antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is essential in addressing the threat of antimicrobial resistance. This study reports the results of five consecutive PPS in a private tertiary hospital in the Philippines, using the Global-PPS protocol.

The 31st European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), will take place in Vienna, Austria from 9 – 12 July 2021. Abstracts can be submitted from 11 January to 24 February 2021.

The Global-PPS team published a paper that focuses on the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship in hospitals in the Global Point Prevalence Survey of Antimicrobial Consumption and Resistance (Global-PPS) network.

Over the past few months, the Global-PPS team has been busy updating the real-time feedback report. They now also provide insight into prevalence’s for the different antibiotic subgroups, healthcare-associated infections and use of invasive devices and the novel WHO AWaRE classification.

When participating in the Global-PPS, online data entry is an important step. We have now created a set of tutorial videos to guide you through the process of online data entry, validation and reporting.

At the 31st edition of ECCMID, Global-PPS participants from Nigeria, Belgium, the Philippines, Cote d’Ivoire, and Iran will present seven abstracts making use of the Global Point Prevalence Survey of Antimicrobial Consumption and Resistance.

On 5 April 2021, the Global-PPS team published a paper in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy that focuses on hospital antibiotic prescribing patterns in adult patients according to the WHO Access, Watch and Reserve classification (AWaRe).